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REESE   LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

%eceiveJ  CfZ£AJ~-<  ,i8gO. 

i/ltressions  Mi.k>77T/.     Class  No. 


By  the  same  author 

Beckonings  from  Little  Hands 

i6mo,  pp.  182.    Illustrated. 
Price,  $1.25 


THE 


POINT  OF  CONTACT 

IN  TEACHING 


BY 
PATTERSON   DU  BOIS 

Formerly  a  Secretary  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society, 

Fellow  of  the  American  Association  for  the 

Advancement  of  Science,  etc. 


THIRD  EDITION 


PHILADELPHIA 

JOHN  D.  WATTLES  &  CO. 

1898 


Copyright,  1896, 

BY 

PATTERSON  DUBOIS. 


$%\ 


DEDICATED 

TO  THE  LITTLE  CHILDREN  OF  THE 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


preface 

The  child  mind  is  a  castle  that  can  be  taken 
neither  by  stealth  nor  by  storm.  But  there  is  a 
natural  way  of  approach  and  a  gate  of  easy 
entry  always  open  to  him  who  knows  how  to 
find  it. 

The  ideal  point  at  which  a  child's  intelligent 
attention  is  to  be  first  engaged,  or  his  instruction 
is  to  begin,  is  an  experience  or  point  of  contact 
with  life.  One  who  understands  this  truth  need 
seldom  have  any  great  difficulty  in  getting  an 
entry  into  the  child's  mind. 

This  little  manual  is  an  expansion  of  a  small 
monograph  issued  over  two  years  ago  under 
the  title  "  Beginning  at  the  Point  of  Contact." 
Being  written  originally  in  the  interest  of  better 
educational  standards  in  the  Sunday-school  it 
won  its  way  into  request  by  Sunday-school 
primary  workers.     But  certain  secular  normal- 


preface 

school  teachers,  discovering  its  general  educa- 
tional utility,  quickly  appropriated  a  large  part 
of  the  edition. 

With  the  demand  for  republication  came  the 
suggestion  that  amplification  would  increase  its 
practical  value.  The  new  matter  now  forms  so 
considerable  a  part  of  the  whole  as  to  render  the 
present  manual  practically  a  new  work.  Numer- 
ous verbal  illustrations  have  been  included,  show- 
ing how  the  principle  has  been  applied  in  dealing 
with  individual  pupils,  with  classes,  with  schools, 
and  even  with  peoples  in  more  or  less  primitive 
stages  of  life. 

The  dissertation  on  the  construction  of  pri- 
mary Bible  courses  is  reserved  for  the  last  chap- 
ter, as  not  being  necessary  to  the  mere  exposition 
of  the  general  principle,  but  as  being  a  legitimate 
outcome  and  illustration  of  it. 

Atigust%  iSg6. 


Contents 


i 

Page 


The  General  Principle 


II 
The  Plane  of  Experience 17 

III 
Applying  the  Principle 45 

IV 
Missing  the  Point 59 

V 

The  Lesson  Material 69 

vii 


I 
£be  (Beneral  principle 


I 
Ube  (General  principle 

"  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth," — but  for  me  he  created  them  not 
until  he  created  me.  Heaven  and  earth  had  no 
beginning,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  until  my 
powers  of  perceiving  them  had  their  beginning. 
So,  although  as  a  new-born  infant  I  am  the  latest 
act  of  God's  work  of  creation,  my  experience, 
my  contact  with  life,  is  my  book  of  beginnings. 
Heaven  and  earth  start  into  existence  in  my 
home,  my  parents,  my  baby-rattle.  In  my 
chronology,  my  father's  gold  watch  precedes  the 
sun,  a  silver  dollar  antedates  the  moon,  and  my 
mother's  jewels  anticipate  the  stars.  My  world 
is  without  form,  and  void.  But  by  this  I  mean 
not  what  the  Bible  Book  of  Genesis  means. 

Things  gradually  assume  shape  as  I  perceive 
their  relations,  and  come  to  know  them  through 
3 


XLbc  point  ot  Contact 

my  personal  experience.  The  seasons,  you  say, 
have  their  beginning  in  the  movement  of  the 
earth  around  the  sun,  but  that  movement  has  its 
beginning  for  me  in  the  seasons.  The  light  of 
day  has  its  real  beginning  in  the  sun,  but  for  me 
the  sun  has  its  beginning  in  the  light  of  day. 
My  infantile  experience  is  my  infantile  book  of 
beginnings, — my  Genesis. 

It  is  a  recognized  philosophical  principle  that 
what  is  historically  first  may  be  logically  last, 
and  what  is  logically  first  may  be  historically 
last ;  or,  as  Aristotle  puts  it,  "  that  which  is  first 
as  cause  is  last  in  discovery."  The  Creation  as 
recorded  in  the  Bible  comes  historically  before 
my  birth ;  but  logically  my  knowledge  of  the 
sun  must  begin  with  the  light  in  my  room,  my 
study  of  the  rock  strata  must  begin  with  the 
stones  in  the  garden  path  ;  of  the  waters,  with 
my  morning  bath ;  of  the  animals,  with  my  pussy 
or  the  flies. 

Not  only  do  these  illustrations  represent  a 
cardinal  principle  in  approaching  the  little 
4 


Zbc  General  principle 

child's  mind,  but  to  a  large  extent  they  indi- 
cate the  only  royal  road  to  success,  the  "line 
of  least  resistance"  in  dealing  with  those  who 
are  infants  in  knowledge  of  any  kind.  They 
are,  in  truth,  but  another  way  of  stating  the  oft- 
repeated  pedagogical  maxim,  "  Proceed  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown." 

Nothing  is  so  truly  known  as  that  which  is 
known  through  personal  experience  or  self- 
activity  in  life.  Therefore  it  is  at  a  point  in  this 
experiential  knowing  that  we  can  begin  to  in- 
struct the  child  to  the  best  advantage.  This 
point  I  call  the  point  of  contact,  because  it  is 
the  point  at  which  his  own  experience  and  the 
lesson  he  is  to  learn  can  be  brought  into  con- 
tact with  each  other, — or,  better,  the  one  evolved 
from  the  other.  Starting  with  something  which 
the  child  knows  through  experience,  and  is 
therefore  personally  interested  in,  the  subject  is 
thenceforth  to  be  progressively  developed. 
(j^  We  must  begin  where  we  find  the  child, — 
\  as    Colonel    Parker   puts   it.      The   only   place 

5 


Gbe  Point  ot  Contact 

where  we  can  be  sure  we  find  him  is  at  some 
point  on  the  plane  of  a  child's  natural  experi- 
ences or  contact  with  life.  His  experience  may 
be  non-sensuous,  internal, — emotional,  or  spirit- 
ual, it  is  true, — but  with  this  we  have  compara- 
tively little  to  do  in  our  first  approach  to  the 
child  mind.  It  is  at  the  point  of  the  child's 
sense  contact  with  the  external  world  that  the 
opportunity  for  our  best  appeal  to  him  lies.  All 
imagery  must  be  made  of  the  raw  material  fur- 
nished by  the  sense  perception.1 

1  Pestalozzi  says:  "The  starting-point  of  thought  is  sense  im- 
pression,— the  direct  impression,  that  is,  produced  by  the  world  on 
our  internal  and  external  senses.  ...  It  is  life  that  educates.'' 
This  is  altogether  a  different  thing  from  addressing  our  primary 
instruction  to  sense  perception  as  such.  As  Dr.  William  T.  Harris 
says :  *'  Thought  deals  with  the  dynamic  element  of  experience 
rather  than  with  mere  things,  which  are  only  static  results."  We 
are  quite  on  the  child's  plane  of  experience  when  we  address  his 
sense  of  wonder,  curiosity,  love,  or  fear.  But  we  know  less  of 
those  points  in  his  experience,  and  cannot  often  be  so  sure  that  we 
are  making  a  close  contact  with  his  real  experiential  life  as  we 
can  when  we  seek  a  point  of  departure  in  his  obvious  natural 
experience  with  the  external  world.  Notwithstanding  the  great 
differences  between  Pestalozzi  and  Frcebel  this  principle  is  not 
essentially  at  variance  with  either.  It  is  true  that  Miss  Blow' 
sharply  contrasts  these  two  greatest  masters  as  to  their  pivotal 

6 


Gbe  ©eneral  principle 

It  is  necessary  here  to  differentiate  certain 
phrases  which  educators  have  used.  These 
phrases  are  the  "point  of  interest,"  "point  of 
sympathy,"  "point  of  departure."  In  the  best 
teaching  all  these  points  are  likely  to  coincide 
as  one.  Thus  we  should,  in  Dr.  Trumbull's 
phrase,  endeavor  to  touch  the  pupil,  or  any  one 
whom  we  wish  to  influence,  at  the  point  of 
sympathy  between  him  and  us.  But  we  shall  do 
our  best  work  if  that  point  of  sympathy  is  at  his 
point  of  contact  with  his  experiences,  and  this 
is  pretty  sure  to  be  his  point  of  interest.  What 
Miss  Blow  calls  the  "point  of  departure"  is 
simply  the  starting-point  in  the  teaching  pro- 
ideas  when  she  says:  "  Pestalozzi  claims  that  the  center  from 
which  education  radiates  is  sense  perception  (Anschauung). 
Froebel  claims  that  this  center  is  Gemuih,  a  word  explained  by 
Hegel  to  mean  the  '  undeveloped,  indefinite  totality  of  spiritual 
being.'  We  may  approximately  translate  Gemuth  by  '  heart,' 
and  affirm  that  with  Froebel  the  pivot  upon  which  true  educa- 
tion turns  is  the  regeneration  of  the  affections."  But  it  is  also 
true  that  she  shows  that  in  Frcebel's  mother-play  "the  point  of 
departure  is  usually  some  actual  experience  of  the  children." 
However,  there  is  no  intention  of  entering  here  upon  a  philo- 
sophical discussion,  but  merely  to  point  out  a  practical  way  of 
approach  to  and  procedure  with  the  child  mind. 


XLbc  point  of  Contact 

cess;  but  this  point  of  departure,  like  all  these 
other  points,  ought  to  be  at  the  child's  point  of 
contact  with  experiential  life.  In  looking  for 
this  point  let  us  not  forget  the  words  of  Rous- 
seau :  "  Childhood  has  ways  of  seeing,  thinking, 
feeling,  peculiar  to  itself;  nothing  is  more  absurd 
than  to  wish  to  substitute  ours  in  their  place." 

The  idea  of  the  relative  value  of  possible 
starting-points,  or  germinal  spots  for  the  child's 
development  as  determined  by  their  closeness 
or  familiarity  to  the  child  through  his  own  ex- 
perience, is  well  illustrated  in  a  discussion  be- 
tween Miss  Youmans  and  Dr.  Mary  P.  Jacobi  in 
the  matter  of  teaching  botany  to  children.  The 
noticeable  thing  is  that  the  child  is  to  approach 
the  science  in  a  direction  opposite  to,  or  at  least 
different  from,  that  from  which  the  mature  scien- 
tist approaches  it.  For  the  child,  that  point  of 
the  plant's  life  which  is  out  of  sight,  underground, 
is  logically,  or  pedagogically,  late,  although  in 
the  plant's  history  it  is  first. 

An  article  on  "The  Scientific  Method  with 
8 


Gbe  General  principle 


Children  "  in  The  Popular  Science  Monthly,  by 
Henry  Lincoln  Clapp,  says  children  "have  their 
own  starting-points,  and  these  should  be  taken 
by  the  teacher.  .  .  .  Dr.  Jacobi  would  use  the 
flower,  in  beginning  to  teach  children  botany, 
because  it  is  the  most  attractive,  makes  the 
largest  impression  upon  the  senses,  is  easy  of 
apprehension,  and  leads  to  the  appreciation  of 
specific  differences.  .  .  .  Miss  Youmans  would 
begin  with  the  leaf,  on  the  assumption  that  it 
is  simpler  than  the  flower,  and,  in  tracing  its 
scientific  relations,  deeper  intellectual  pleasure  is 
received.  .  .  .  Beginning  with  roots,  as  so  many 
systematic  teachers  have  done,  and  following 
with  stem,  leaves,  flowers,  and  ending  with  fruits 
as  the  ultimate  work  of  the  plant,  although  logi- 
cal to  adults,  full  of  regular  sequences,  and 
scientific  from  one  standpoint,  is  unscientific 
from  another. 

"  Children  do  not  start  to  work  with  plants  in 
that  way  unless  they  are  obliged  to,  but  in  a  way 
diametrically   opposite, — attractive   flowers   and 

9 


Gbe  point  of  Contact 

fruits  first,  and  unattractive  roots  last.  It  is  cer- 
tainly natural,  although  it  may  be  heathenish, 
and  show  their  natural  depravity,  for  them  to  do 
so.  .  .  .  An  extensive  use  of  imported  material  is 
directly  opposed  to  Agassiz's  injunction  to  use  the 
material  nearest  at  hand.  Moreover,  it  is  worth 
while  to  remember  that  materials  and  methods 
which  are  serviceable  enough  in  teaching  adults 
often  become  forced  and  mechanical  in  teaching 
children.  It  should  not  be  taken  for  granted 
that  the  teacher's  sequences,  laboriously  studied 
out,  .  .  .  are  the  pupil's  sequences,  or  that  he  can 
assimilate  them." 

Now  the  great  fault  in  our  religious  teaching 
of,  or  Sunday-school  work  with,  the  child,  has 
been  that  we  have  not  sought  this  his  most 
penetrable  point.  Our  approach  to  him  has 
been  through  adult  ideas,  upon  an  adult  plane, 
and  complicated  with  conventionality  and  ab- 
stractions. We  have  not  sufficiently  regarded 
the  plane  of  his  experience  as  the  essential 
approach  to  him.  Observe,  I  do  not  locate  this 
10 


Gbc  General  principle 

plane  as  either  high  or  low ;  it  is  neither,  and  it 
is  both,  according  to  what  your  terms  mean.  It 
is  in  some  ways  higher  than  ours,  in  some  ways 
lower.     Let  that  pass. 

We  have  stood  upon  our  adult  plane  of  com- 
plex thought  and  conventionality  to  manipulate 
the  little  child's  current  of  thought  running  on  a 
very  different  plane.  True,  we  have  spoken 
baby-talk  to  him,  but  in  that  baby-language  we 
have  spoken  to  him  truths  unsuited  to  babies, 
and  because  he  was  seemingly  entertained  with 
our  antics  we  supposed  that  we  succeeded 
in  our  effort  to  make  an  adult  baby  of  him. 
Our  Lord  did  not  teach  that  way.  See  how  he 
made  the  people  think  by  finding  their  point  of 
contact  with  common  life,  and  proceeding  from 
this  starting-point  to  whatever  truth  he  had  in 
view  for  them.  Like  him,  we  must  address 
pupils  on  the  level  of  their  experiential  life. 

We  have  made  too  much,  for  instance,  of  time 
sequences.  The  young  child  has  a  very  inade- 
quate conception  of  mere  chronology.  History 
ii 


Gbe  point  of  Contact 

as  history — a  record  of  impersonal  events,  of 
remote  causes  and  effects — is  wholly  out  of  his 
plane  of  comprehension.  His  sequences  are  of  a 
different  sort.  So,  too,  we  have  made  too  much 
of  formal  doctrines  and  mere  points  of  theologi- 
cal reasoning,  and  of  an  objective  life  utterly 
foreign  and  remote  from  the  child's  experience. 
A  writer  in  The  Church  Standard,  C.  E.  Hutchi- 
son, says :  "  We  have  lessons  in  the  Cate- 
chism crammed  with  words  over  which  grown 
people  have  been  fighting  for  centuries,  and 
about  which  they  do  not  yet  agree.  And  there 
are  laborious  series  on  the  Bible,  full  of  informa- 
tion about  the  structure  of  Jewish  houses,  the 
order  of  service  in  the  synagogue,  suggestions 
for  special  investigation,  and  the  like."  The 
child's  plane  is  in  the  activities  and  appreciations 
of  immediate  life. 

Leaders     in     educational     and     pedagogical 

thought  have  long  seen  the  radical  defect  in  our 

Sunday-school,  as  indeed  in  all    our   religious 

instruction  of  the  little  children.     The  Sunday- 

12 


ftbe  General  principle 

school  has  prominently  been  severely  criticised 
as  an  educational  system.  Whatever  truth  there 
may  be  in  such  criticisms  we  know  the  Sunday- 
school  to  be  one  of  the  grandest  and  most  aggres- 
sive of  Christian  institutions,  even  if  we  do  admit 
its  shortcomings.  But  we  ought  not  to  be  above 
learning  from  our  critics.  A  recent  article  in 
The  Westminster  Review  gives  forth  no  uncer- 
tain sound,  thus : 

"  Theology  should  not  be  forced  upon  the 
child's  mind  at  a  very  early  age.  ...  A  child's  first 
idea  of  spiritual  things,  if  these  are  presented  to 
him  in  the  phraseology  usually  employed  for  the 
purpose,  is  necessarily  a  false  one,  made  so  by 
his  natural  substitution  of  the  concrete  for  the 
abstract.  This  fact  often  receives  practical  con- 
firmation from  the  quaint  notions  children  are 
found  to  have  formed  about  religion  ;  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  questions  to  which  these  notions 
give  rise  is  a  frequent  cause  of  amusement  to 
their  elders,  but  it  none  the  less  furnishes  con- 
clusive evidence  of  the  confusion  that  prevails  in 
13 


Gbe  lPolnt  of  Contact 

many  little  minds.  Premature  instruction  rela- 
ting to  the  spiritual  side  of  religion  thus  leads 
the  child  into  errors  which  have  to  be  corrected 
by  subsequent  experience,  and  the  false  ideas 
resulting  from  it  form  an  undesirable  starting- 
point  in  religious  instruction." 

Where,  then,  will  the  desirable  starting-point 
be  found  ?  In  the  general  range  or  on  the  plane 
of  childhood  experiences,  and  especially  those 
which  arise  from  the  child's  immediate  contact 
with  the  external  world. 

Here  let  it  be  said,  once  for  all,  that  in  this 
manual  "the  child"  usually  means  a  child  under 
eight  years  of  age.  Years  do  not  regulate  every- 
thing, but  they  do  regulate  some  things.  Span 
of  time  is  an  essential  to  the  reaching  of  a  cer- 
tain plane  of  experience,  a  certain  sight-level, 
a  grade  of  development.  A  forced  cultivation 
of  brain  cells,  natural  precocity  or  intelligence, 
will  never  put  a  child  just  where  an  accumula- 
tion of  conscious  years  will.  A  child  or  a  man 
may  be  such  a  prodigy  in  arithmetic  as  to  make 

n 


Gbe  General  principle 

gigantic  calculations  in  a  moment  of  time.  He 
may  have  such  a  phenomenal  memory  that  he 
can  repeat  verbatim  the  contents  of  a  newspaper 
after  one  reading.  He  may  have  powers  like 
these,  and  yet  be  dependent  on  common  experi- 
ence for  just  that  development  which  such  ex- 
perience alone  can  bring.  He  must  have  a 
sense  of  the  process  of  time,  or  of  conscious 
intervals,  behind  him,  in  order  to  have  a  definite 
historic  consciousness.  And  the  younger  the 
child  the  more  applicable  is  this  truth  of  child 
nature. 

In  his  outlook  and  in  his  general  mental 
method  a  child  of  six  is  farther  from  a  child  of 
ten  or  twelve  than  a  child  of  twelve  is  from  a 
young  man  of  twenty.  One  of  the  first  signs  of 
a  real  forward  movement  in  the  primary  school 
will  be  the  removal  therefrom  of  all  the  children 
over  eight  years  of  age.  Until  the  necessity  of 
doing  this  is  perceived  and  acted  upon,  Sunday- 
school  "  child-study  "  will  have  proved  itself 
of  little  utility. 

i5 


Zbe  Point  ot  Contact 

The  general  principle,  then,  is,  that  in  the 
child's  instruction  we  must  begin  at  his  point  of 
contact  with  life.  Life,  it  is  true,  includes  the 
intuitional  experiences  as  well  as  those  which 
are  sensory  and  peripheral.  But  it  is  in  the 
region  of  the  latter,  it  is  upon  the  plane  of  those 
experiences  which  he  gets  in  his  sense  contact 
with  the  external  world,  that  we  must  usually  start 
with  him.  That  these  experiences  are  concrete 
rather  than  abstract,  simple  rather  than  complex, 
immediate  rather  than  remote,  will  be  more  fully 
illustrated  in  the  next  chapter. 


II 
£be  plane  of  Experience 


II 
Ube  plane  ot  Biperfence 

As  a  practical  matter,  the  point  of  entry  to  any 
child's  mind  depends  upon  the  individuality  of 
his  life;  but  in  dealing  with  classes  we  must 
make  sacrifices  of  the  individual  for  the  many. 
We  can  appeal  to  childhood  from  the  general 
plane  or  ordinary  range  of  childhood  experi- 
ences. Says  H.  Courthope  Bowen,  "  What  in- 
terests a  child  must  be  immediate  and  level  to 
his  thoughts.  He  cannot  realize  a  far-off  advan- 
tage; or,  at  any  rate,  he  cannot  feel  it  for  long. 
Young  and  old,  we  all  experience  delight  in 
discovering,  or  in  being  helped  to  see,  connec- 
tions between  isolated  facts, — especially  such  as 
we  have  ourselves  picked  up." 

Manifestly  the  plane  of  experience,  the  ger- 
mination of  interest,  the  genesis  of  study,  will  be 
a  simple,  rather  than  a  complex^pj^etg^rather 

19 

UNIVERSITY 


Gbe  ipoint  ot  Contact 

than  abstract.  As  Lange  says,  "the  numerous 
concrete,  fresh,  and  strong  ideas  gained  in  earliest 
youth  are  the  best  helps  to  apperception  for  all 
subsequent  learning."  But  these  germinal  ideas 
have  no  affiliation  with  the  "  regular  sequences  " 
of  theology,  or  with  "  imported  material,"  to 
which  Agassiz  objected;  they  will  not  be  found 
in  the  local,  political,  or  religious  issues,  or  the 
imagery  of  Haggai,  Zechariah,  Nehemiah,  Na- 
hum,  Micah,  or  Habakkuk,  or  the  complex 
rituals  and  regulations  of  the  Mosaic  era.  Sup- 
posing "the  elders  of  the  Jews"  did  build  and 
prosper  "  through  the  prophesying  of  Haggai 
the  prophet  and  Zechariah  the  son  of  Iddo," — 
what  is  that  to  a  babe  who  has  no  conception  of 
space,  time,  organized  society,  or  even  of  our 
commonest  adult  conventionalities?  How  near 
are  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the  plane  of  ex- 
perience of  a  child  who  cannot  count  up  to  ten 
— nor  above  four  ? 

Nor  is  there  experimental  contact  in  such  a 
"golden  text"  as  "The  Lord  thy  God  will  turn 
20 


Ebe  H>lane  of  ^Experience 

thy  captivity,  and  have  compassion  upon  thee;" 
nor  in  "We  made  our  prayer  unto  our  God, 
and  set  a  watch  against  them."  Even  for  such 
a  text  as  "  The  preaching  of  the  cross  is  to 
them  that  perish  foolishness,  but  unto  us  which 
are  saved  it  is  the  power  of  God,"  one  requires 
considerable  prior  knowledge  before  it  can  be 
assimilated  into  the  life  and  become  formative 
of  character.  To  force  these  on  the  child  is 
what  that  remarkable  teacher  Thring  of  Up- 
pingham would  call  "an  effort  to  pour  into  a 
reluctant  mind  some  unintelligible  bit  of  cipher 
knowledge  and  to  cork  it  down  by  punishment. 
It  disagrees,  it  ferments,  the  cork  flies  out,  the 
noxious  stuff  is  spilt;  whilst  the  taskmaster 
believes  it  is  all  right  because  of  the  trouble  he 
took  to  get  it  in." 

Deliberately  to  select  a  Scripture  portion  so 
remote  from  the  plane  of  experience  of  little 
children,  and  then  suppose  that,  because  it  is 
God's  Word,  God  will  work  a  miracle  in  order 
that  they  may  understand  it,  seems  hardly  less 
21 


Gbe  iPoint  of  Contact 

than  presumptuous  mockery.  The  responsi- 
bility is  upon  us  to  see  that  truths  are  presented 
to  the  children  in  an  order  consistent  with  their 
capability  to  receive  those  truths  through  ex- 
periential beginnings.  And  this  is  not  to  be 
done  by  paraphernalia,  or  by  parrot  verbal 
memorizing,  or  by  the  awakening  of  a  pseudo 
attention  through  mere  spectacular  exhibits  of 
hearts,  ladders,  crosses,  crowns,  and  blackboard 
intricacies  which  might  make  an  adult  dizzy  if 
they  do  not  bewilder  children. 

"The  worthless  and  even  injurious  outcome 
of  such  teaching,"  in  the  language  of  Colonel 
Parker,  "is  the  memorizing  of  meaningless 
words,  and  a  permanent  dislike  for  the  subject 
so  mistaught."  Take  this  text:  "Giving  thanks 
unto  the  Father,  which  hath  made  us  meet  to 
be  partakers  of  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in 
light."  How  absurd  to  attempt  to  force  a  con- 
ception here!  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  into 
thinking  that  such  memorizings  have  a  future 
value.  Says  Frcebel:  "At  a  later  period  of  life, 
22 


Zhe  plane  of  ^Experience 

when  comprehension  attaches  a  sense  to  the 
sound,  the  senseless  word  will  be  the  more  in- 
jurious. .  .  .  Every  word  ought  to  offer  to  the 
child's  mind  a  sound  to  which  to  attach  some 
elements  of  thought." 

To  say  that  a  child  has  enjoyed  committing 
to  memory  proves  little.  Nothing  is  more 
seductive  to  the  teacher  than  the  child's  enjoy- 
ment or  delight  in  his  task.  Not  that  he  should 
not  delight  in  it,  but  the  delight  may  entirely 
mislead  us  as  to  its  cause.  "It  is  possible," 
says  President  G.  Stanley  Hall,  "  that  the  present 
shall  be  so  attractive  and  preoccupying  that 
the  child  never  once  sends  his  thoughts  to  the 
remote  in  time  and  place."  This  "present"  may 
be  mere  verbal  jingle,  it  may  be  the  artificial 
paraphernalia  of  the  primary  room,  or  anything 
but  the  concept  which  the  adult  observer  is 
laboring  to  lodge  in  a  mind  impenetrable  to  it. 

The  points  of  contact  of  most  children  with 
the  worlds  of  matter  and  of  thought  are  at  once 
numerous   and   few.     Investigations   conducted 

23 


Gbe  Point  of  Contact 

under  the  direction  of  President  Hall  upon  large 
numbers  of  Boston  school-children,  just  after 
they  had  entered  the  lowest  grade  of  the  primary 
school,  say  six  years  old,  revealed  that  35  per 
cent  had  never  seen  the  country,  20  per  cent 
did  not  know  where  milk  came  from,  55  per 
cent  did  not  know  that  wooden  things  were 
made  from  trees,  47  per  cent  never  saw  a  pig, 
from  13  to  18  per  cent  did  not  know  where  their 
cheek,  forehead,  or  throat  was,  and  fewer  yet 
knew  elbow,  wrist,  ribs,  etc.  More  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  children  had  never  seen,  to  know 
them,  any  of  the  common  cereals,  trees,  or 
vegetables,  growing.  These  facts  indicate  how 
slenderly  furnished  the  child's  mind  is  for  a 
discussion  involving  theologies,  chronologies, 
successive  wars,  political  complications,  Judaiz- 
ing  tendencies,  obscure  imageries  and  prophetic 
references,  ancient  ritual  usages,  tribal  dissen- 
sions, and  the  like. 

President  Hall  well  asks,  "What  idea  can  the 
18  per  cent  of  children  who  thought  a  cow  no 
24 


Zbc  plane  of  ^Experience 

larger  than  its  picture,  get  from  all  instruction 
about  hide,  horns,  milk?"  This  is  a  pertinent 
question,  mutatis  mutandis,  for  whoever  is  to 
make  lesson-courses  for  our  primary  Sunday- 
schools,  even  more  than  for  those  who  are  to 
teach  them.  To  tell  the  average  six-year  old 
that  "the  price  of  a  virtuous  woman  is  far  above 
rubies,"  simple  as  it  sounds  to  us,  presupposes 
an  experience  in  the  matter  of  relative  values, 
of  precious  stones,  of  marketable  abstractions. 
Is  this  any  better  than  teaching  about  the  un- 
known cow  by  an  account  of  unknown  horns, 
hide,  etc.? 

In  the  same  line  of  revelation  as  Dr.  Hall's, 
Superintendent  O.  J.  Laylander  of  Iowa  ob- 
tained through  certain  teachers  answers  to  such 
plain  questions  as  "Why  should  we  do  good?" 
"What  is  Sunday  for?"  "Where  is  heaven?" 
"What  do  children  do  in  heaven?"  "What  do 
the  angels  do?"  "How  does  God  look?"  etc. 
The  replies  come  from  children  varying  from 
six  to  ten  years.  Here  are  a  few  specimen 
25 


Gbe  point  ot  Contact 

answers.  "Angels  wear  plain  white  clothes, 
and  don't  look  stylish."  "  Have  nice  hair  and 
wear  nice  gowns."  "Angels  come  down  and 
tell  men  when  they  burn  sheep  what  to  do." 

Other  answers,  about  the  Divine  appearance, 
etc.,  while  they  are  not  irreverent,  seem  almost 
shocking  to  us,  and  need  not  be  repeated  here ;  it 
is  natural  for  the  child  to  be  concrete  and  posi- 
tive. One  does  not  have  to  look  far  to  discover 
the  sensuous  origin  of  most,  if  not  all,  of  these 
answers, — perhaps  not  outside  of  some  of  our 
homes  and  Sunday-schools.  Some  of  them  are 
at  least  a  serious  reflection  on  the  advisability 
of  displaying  crude  chromos  as  a  portraiture  of 
our  Lord.  It  is  indeed  a  question  how  far  the 
picturing  of  spirit  is  advisable.  The  child's 
imagination  hardly  needs  this  kind  of  stimulus. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  ideally  exact  point 
of  departure  or  genesis  of  a  child's  education  in 
any  sphere  is  an  experience,  or  contact  with  the 
world,  peculiar  to  that  child.  For  a  certain 
little  girl's  recitation  from  Longfellow  I  chose 
26 


Gbe  iplane  ot  ^Experience 

a  part  of  the  potter's  song  in  "  Keramos  " — with 
great  success.  But  this  was  largely  because  she 
had  visited  a  pottery,  and  had  come  into  actual 
sense  contact  with,  and  so  acquired  an  interest 
in,  the  processes  of  the  potters'  wheel. 

The  more  closely  anything  lies  to  our  per- 
sonal experience,  and  the  nearer  it  is  to  the  level 
of  our  ordinary  vision,  the  more  easily  do  we 
become  interested  in  it,  and  the  better  starting- 
point  is  it,  therefore,  from  which  to  follow  a  line 
of  thought.  This  is  not  peculiar  to  the  child, 
but  is  common  to  all.  The  range  of  experience 
is  much  more  extensive  in  the  adult  than  in  the 
child.  Every  one  knows  that  when  he  has  been 
through  a  particular  form  of  experience,  he  has 
always  a  peculiar  interest  in  others  who  are 
passing  through  that  same  experience.  A  per- 
son who  has  been  rescued  from  a  burning  build- 
ing in  the  middle  of  the  night  will  run  to  the 
window  to  see  the  fire  department  go  by,  when, 
previously  to  his  rescue,  he  would  have  paid 
very  little  attention  to  it.  A  person  who  has 
27 


Gbe  ipoint  of  Contact 

contracted  what  he  supposes  to  be  an  unusual 
disease  is  surprised  to  discover  so  many  other 
persons  who  have  been,  or  are,  afflicted  in  the 
same  way. 

Let  me  illustrate  now  a  little  more  particularly 
this  matter  of  the  plane  of  experience,  or  levels 
of  sight,  or  points  of  view,  in  dealing  with  a 
child's  mind. 

An  intelligent  and  studious  child  in  her  ninth 
year  was,  with  her  father's  assistance,  studying 
the  Sunday-school  lesson  on  "  The  Cities  of 
Refuge."  She  had  never  heard  the  word 
"  refuge,"  and  her  father  explained,  as  well  as  he 
could,  first  what  the  idea  of  refuge  is,  and  then 
what  a  city  of  refuge  was.  She  went  to  Sunday- 
school,  and  the  teacher,  in  order  to  vivify  the 
lesson,  told  a  dreadful  story  of  the  torture  which 
some  boys  had  inflicted  upon  a  companion. 
The  child  was  so  shocked  by  the  horror  that  it 
was  some  time  before  it  lost  its  hold  on  her 
nerves.  The  idea  of  the  city  of  refuge  seemed 
to    have   made   no   impression    on    her   at   all, 


Zbc  plane  ot  ^Experience 

although  it  was,  of  course,  explained  to  her  a 
second  time  in  the  class. 

Six  months  later  she  visited  an  old  fort.  It 
was  altogether  a  different  sort  of  thing  from 
what  she  supposed  a  fort  to  be.  In  discussing 
it  with  her  father,  the  various  wars  in  which  it 
had  played  a  part  were  spoken  of,  and  then  the 
father  said  that  it  had  done  great  service  as  a 
place  of  refuge  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  adjacent 
town  during  an  attack  by  the  Indians.  The 
child  immediately  asked,  "  What  is  a  refuge  ?  " 
The  explanations  of  the  term  which  she  had  re- 
ceived a  half-year  before  had  gone  for  nothing. 
The  father  tried  to  recall  the  Bible  lesson  of  the 
previous  term,  but  to  little  purpose.  Refuges,  as 
such,  had  not  come  within  the  plane  of  her  ex- 
perience until  now,  and  hence  the  definition  of 
them,  and  the  lesson  upon  them,  amounted  to 
little.  The  explanation  had  to  be  made  over 
again  with  the  object  in  actual  view,  the  father 
recalling  the  lesson  on  the  cities  of  refuge  and 
so  establishing  a  logical  connection. 
29 


Zhc  point  ot  Contact 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  plane  of  experience  in 
this  case,  and  the  relative  degrees  of  immediate- 
ness  to,  or  remoteness  from,  the  child's  circum- 
stantial interest.  Being  herself  a  temporary 
inhabitant  of  the  town  as  a  visitor,  the  flight  of 
the  inhabitants  to  the  fort  for  refuge  came  closely 
within  the  range  of  her  imagination — or  fancied 
experience.  It  is  true  she  had  never  experienced 
such  an  event  as  a  flight  for  life,  but  she  was 
close  enough  to  the  conditions  to  be  able — by 
raising  herself,  through  her  imagination,  on  her 
tiptoes,  metaphorically — to  come  quite  within 
sight  of  the  experience  of  a  refugee. 

Again,  suppose  she  had  actually  been  herself 
a  refugee  from  the  Indians  in  a  place  of  safety. 
The  idea  of  the  fort  as  a  place  of  refuge  would 
have  been  far  more  vivid,  more  intensely  real. 
In  either  case  there  was  an  excellent  point  of 
contact  with  experience  from  which  to  teach  the 
idea  of  refuge  in  time  of  danger.  But  in  one 
case  more  than  in  the  other  the  contact  would 
have  been  closer.     In  one  case,  she  had  sufficient 

30 


Ube  plane  ot  Experience 

sensory  knowledge  of  the  place  to  imagine  the 
experience  with  fair  correctness ;  in  the  other, 
she  would  have  had  an  actual  experience.  But 
without  some  such  basis  any  instruction  would 
have  conveyed  little  impression.  In  the  Sunday- 
school  class  the  city  of  refuge  had  no  basis 
whatever  in  life  experience,  and  what  the  imagi- 
nation could  do,  therefore,  was  so  weak  that  it 
soon  dropped  out  of  her  mental  furniture. 

Let  us  now  take  another  case  showing  a  con- 
scious resistance  of  the  child  to  the  attempt  to 
force  upon  him  truths  of  nature  by  bringing 
them  wrong  end  foremost  or  foreign  to  his  ex- 
periential plane.  I  condense  and  quote  from 
an  article  by  Mrs.  Mary  C.  Cutler  in  The  Sunday 
School  Times.  She  tells  of  an  enthusiastic  high- 
school  girl  who,  having  become  interested  in 
geology,  decided  to  use  her  knowledge  as  the 
basis  of  bed-time  tales  for  her  little  brother. 

"  Wouldn't  Robbie  like  to  have  each  night  a  part  of  a 
great,  long  story,  all  about  how  the  earth  was  made?" 
she  asked  one  evening  soon  afterward. 

31 


Gbe  Point  of  Contact 

"P'raps  so,"  he  answered,  somewhat  doubtfully. 
"Will  you  tell  how  the  sidewalks  were  made?"  he 
added,  seeming  a  little  more  interested. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  replied  his  sister  ;  "  only  we  want  to  know 
first  how  the  ground  was  made  to  lay  the  sidewalks 
on." 

And  so  the  story  had  gone  on  night  after  night,  while 
Robbie  had  shown  varying  degrees  of  interest,  but  never 
quite  so  much  as  his  sister  had  expected.  She  tried  her 
best  to  adapt  the  story  to  his  comprehension,  and  some- 
times felt  much  encouraged;  as  when  she  was  telling 
about  the  formation  of  the  coal-beds,  and  showed  him  a 
piece  of  coal  she  had  found,  which  seemed  to  have  mark- 
ings on  it  like  the  bark  of  a  tree ;  or,  at  another  time, 
when  she  showed  him  a  picture  of  the  huge  bird-tracks 
that  had  been  found  in  other  formations. 

But  now  and  then  Robbie  would  ask  some  question 
about  the  sidewalks,  showing  that  his  interest  was  cen- 
tered on  that  with  which  he  had  first  become  acquainted 
in  experience.  The  sidewalks  were  his  "point  of  con- 
tact" with,  and  his  first  interest  in,  earth  structure.  It 
was  because  he  hoped  to  learn  some  time  how  the  side- 
walks were  made,  that  he  was  trying  to  listen  patiently 
to  all  the  rest  of  the  story. 

And  so  on  this  night  Robbie  settled  himself  down  in 
his  corner  of  the  chair,  and  was  very  quiet.  He  asked 
his  sister  no  more  questions.  For  the  first  time  his  eyes 
began  to  droop  before  she  had  finished. 

"  I  must  try  to  make  it  more  interesting,"  she  said  to 
herself  as  she  kissed  him  good-night.  .  .  . 

32 


Gbe  iplane  of  ^Experience 

Years  afterward,  when  our  school-girl  had  grown  older 
and  wiser,  she  learned  how  abnormal,  as  well  as  unsatis- 
fying, had  been  her  method, — that  she  ought  to  have 
begun  with  what  the  child  already  knew  something 
about,  and  was  interested  in,  and  thence  she  could  have 
led  him  whither  she  would.  To  the  high-school  girl  the 
sidewalks  were  laid  on  the  ground ;  to  the  child,  the 
ground  was  hidden  under  the  sidewalks.  His  first  expe- 
rience with  earth  was  not  the  underlying  ground,  but  the 
overlying  sidewalks.  She  had  vainly  thought  to  begin 
at  the  beginning  of  God's  works,  instead  of  the  real 
beginning  of  knowledge-getting, — the  "point  of  contact" 
with  the  world. 

Now  to  go  farther.  Whatever  truth  is  com- 
mon to  Christianity  and  heathenism  is  the  point 
of  sympathy  at  which  the  missionary  can  most 
hopefully  begin.  This  will  be  at  a  point  of  con- 
tact with  the  religious  life  of  the  heathen,  an 
attitude,  an  act,  a  deed,  a  hope,  or  something 
which  has  become  already  a  part  of  his  religious 
experience.  There  will  be  different  starting- 
points  for  the  Brahman,  the  Mohammedan,  the 
Confucian ;  the  educational  genesis  for  the  Bush- 
man will  be  different  from  that  for  the  North 
American  Indian. 

3  33 


Zbc  IPoint  of  Contact 

A  teacher  at  Hampton  Institute  told  me  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Indians  can  be  more 
easily  reached  through  the  story  of  the  early 
Hebrews  than  can  the  negro.  The  Indian 
feels  a  certain  affiliation  with  Abraham  which 
the  negro  does  not.  The  life  experience  of 
the  Indian  is  nomadic  and  closely  akin  to  the 
Orientals.  The  "point  of  departure"  or  starting- 
point,  in  teaching  the  Indian,  might  therefore 
differ  from  that  in  teaching  the  negro,  who 
touches  life  in  experiences  of  quite  a  different 
nature. 

One  of  the  most  beautifully  apt  and  convin- 
cing illustrations  of  the  necessity  of  addressing 
primitive  minds  from  their  own  plane  of  experi- 
ence is  to  be  found  in  the  following  abstract 
from  a  private  letter  recently  received  from  a 
missionary  in  Africa.  He  says:  "I  have  sought 
in  vain  for  a  suitable  abstract  of  Bible  history 
which  might  be  translated.  'Peep  of  Day*  we 
have,  and  it  answers  a  certain  purpose.  'Line 
upon  Line '  has  been  tried,  but  neither  appeals 
34 


/0&  L,B^?K 

fi    Y*  OF  THE  *  r    NV 

I  UNIVERSITY  ] 

TTbe  flMane  of  Biperiencr^"  '■  ^ 

to  the  native  mind.  There  is  something  far  too 
goody-goody  in  the  phraseology  to  permit  a 
translation.  'My  dear  children/  'Poor  Daniel,' 
'  How  glad  he  must  have  been,'  '  How  beautiful 
it  must  have  been  to  see  the  angels,'  and  so  on, 
are  not  translatable.  The  scenes  of  civilization 
are  too  often  brought  in,  and  the  illustrations 
fall  flat.  What  is  wanted  is  something  vigorous, 
not  requiring  much  imagination  to  understand, 
based  on  wild  native  life — very  much  like  the 
life  of  the  old  Israelites." 

The  principal  difficulty  encountered  in  teach- 
ing these  Africans  is  just  the  difficulty  which  we 
encounter,  expressed  in  reverse  terms.  The 
Africans  find  no  point  of  contact  with  our  civil- 
ization and  modes  of  thought.  Our  little  chil- 
dren have  few  points  of  contact  with  ancient 
Oriental  life  and  modes  of  thought. 

It   is    even    true    of  ourselves.      How   many 

can  read  through  the  Prophets  with  any  clear 

apprehension    of    the    significance    of    allusion, 

historical   or  poetical,  made  by  those   writers? 

35 


£be  lPoint  of  Contact 

Certainly  a  large  majority  of  fairly  intelligent 
teachers  on  reading  those  books  gain  only  a 
general  sense  of  something  poetic,  something 
historical,  something  religious.  The  unsatisfac- 
tion  which  such  readers  feel  under  such  circum- 
stances is  somewhat  parallel  with  the  unsatisfied 
child's  mind  after  a  lesson  in  the  primary  school 
of  which  the  whole  basis  of  thought  or  action  is 
entirely  abstract,  or  is  external,  remote  from,  and 
foreign  to,  his  life  experiences.  But  the  child 
cannot  help  himself.  Because  we  make  the 
presentation  entertaining  with  sentimental  talk 
and  ingenious  appliances,  we  imagine  that  he  is 
realizing  the  whole  remote  situation. 

Mrs.  Annie  Trumbull  Slosson's  "Fishin' 
Jimmy"  never  got  hold  of  Christ  until  his  plane 
of  experience  was  struck, — and  that  the  fishing 
interest.  Jimmy  was  practically  insulated  from 
salvation  until  one  spot  of  contact  was  discovered, 
and  forthwith  the  current  flowed.  But  the  Book 
of  Romans  would  not  have  availed,  nor  would 
Genesis  have  proved  a  genesis  for  him. 
36 


Zhz  UMane  of  ^Experience 

The  Salvation  Army  seeks  and  finds  the  de- 
graded wretches  of  the  slums,  not  through  a 
map  of  Palestine,  nor  through  appeal  to  the 
Catechism,  but  through  that  which  is  common 
to  their  experience, — noise  and  racket,  the  bass 
drum  and  the  brass  horn.  The  loud  music  and 
the  bright  colors  are  the  "  lines  of  least  resist- 
ance" over  which  this  species  of  human  nature 
passes  into  the  first  contemplation  of  a  cleaner, 
better,  and  nobler  life.  Similarly,  a  child  is  to 
be  introduced  to  his  studies  at  the  point  of  ex- 
perience,— to  geography  by  starting  at  his  sense 
perceptions  of  distance,  direction,  form,  number, 
rain,  snow,  clouds,  steam,  vapor,  heat,  cold,  etc. 
Then  locations  at  home  and  vicinity,  the  yard, 
garden,  farm,  or  landscape  in  view,  etc. 

A  live  teacher  in  the  South  wrote  to  me, 
"My  mother  most  interestingly  taught  me 
botany  from  the  'point  of  contact'  of  the  yellow 
pollen  on  my  nose  when  I  had  smelled  a  fra- 
grant flower  too  ardently." 

In  response  to  my  first  publication  on  this 
37 


Gbe  lpoint  ot  Contact 

subject  of  the  point  of  contact,  an  able  teacher 
in  the  Southwest  wrote:  "You  are  eminently 
right  about  your  Sunday-school  methods.  It 
is  God's  way.  Jesus  went  to  the  people  at  their 
point  of  contact,  and,  though  a  carpenter,  he 
never  drew  a  figure  from  his  own  calling,  but 
always  from  theirs."  He  then  goes  on  to  give 
his  experience  in  feeling  for  a  point  of  contact 
from  which  to  start  an  interest  in  ornithology  in 
a  country  boy.     He  says  : 

"  Recently  I  attempted  to  describe  the  oven- 
bird  to  a  country  boy  who,  I  knew,  had  often 
seen  it,  but  did  not  know  it.  I  went  through 
plumage,  size,  song,  nest,  etc.,  but  the  case 
looked  hopeless.  At  last  I  mentioned  the  habit 
of  alighting  near  the  limb  and  running  out 
toward  its  tip.  His  face  brightened.  *  Is  he  a 
kind  of  high  stepper?'  he  asked,  picking  up  his 
feet  exactly  as  the  bird  does.  In  this  way  the 
boy  has  become  a  helpful  observer — learning  how 
to  observe.  His  descriptions  are  so  accurate 
that  I  often  diagnose  birds  from  them  before  he 
38 


ftbe  plane  of  ^Experience 

is  through.  He  has  a  new  interest  in  his  farm 
work.  He  could  never  have  got  it  from  syste- 
matic ornithology."  No  more  can  the  child 
get  his  interest  in  religious  truth  through  syste- 
matic theology,  catechisms,  or  other  forms  of 
conventionalized  and  abstract  thought,  or  images 
based  on  material  things  with  which  the  child 
has  never  come  into  sense  contact. 

A  little  girl  once  asked  me  about  the  bones  in 
her  arm.  I  briefly  explained,  but  the  off-hand 
explanation  was  not  likely  to  remain  with  her. 
Soon  after  came  a  day  when  I  carved  a  chicken 
for  dinner.  Giving  her  a  wing,  I  said,  "You 
see  this  part  has  one  bone  and  this  part  two. 
It  is  like  our  arms."  I  subsequently  showed 
her  a  human  skeleton.  The  next  time  she  was 
given  a  chicken  wing  at  dinner  I  said,  "You 
know  there  are  two  bones  here,  as  in  our  fore- 
arms. Chicken's  wings  take  the  place  of  our 
arms."  "Or,"  she  responded,  "wouldn't  the 
chickens  say,  if  they  could  talk  about  us,  'Their 
arms  take  the  place  of  our  wings'?" 

39 


Zbe  {point  of  Contact 

Suppose  I  had  answered,  "Ah,  my  child,  we 
must  begin  at  the  beginning!  Anatomy  is  'that 
branch  of  morphology  which  treats  of  the  struc- 
ture of  organisms.'  There  are  various  divisions 
of  the  subject,  as  comparative  anatomy,  patho- 
logical anatomy,  practical,  surgical,  topographi- 
cal, transcendental  anatomies,  etc.  Let  us  take 
nature  in  an  orderly  way.  You  must  first  com- 
mit to  memory  the  definition  of  anatomy  and 
the  technology  of  the  bones  themselves.  In  after 
years  it  will  serve  you  when  you  come  to  study 
the  arm  of  man  and  the  wing  of  bird." 

Is  this  a  travesty?  Call  it  rather  a  parallel. 
Has  it  not  been  practically  the  procedure  in 
many  Sunday-schools? 

Any  one  who  does  not  realize  how  widely 
the  adult  and  the  childhood  planes  are  separated 
will  do  well  to  discover,  after  a  ten  minutes' 
conversation  with  a  child,  precisely  how  the 
child  understood  him,  and  how  far  he  under- 
stood the  child.  Let  him  take  Longfellow  or 
Bryant,  for  instance,  and  discover,  if  he  can, 
40 


Gbe  plane  ot  ^Experience 

how  much  there  is  on  most  of  the  pages  of 
these  poets  quite  out  of  the  range  of  the  child's 
vision  and  on  another  plane  altogether. 

Again,  let  any  one  take  a  child  of  from  five 
to  eight  into  a  legislative  assembly  for  the  first 
time  and  attempt  to  explain  the  proceedings. 
Every  time  he  attempts  to  put  his  foot  down  in 
order  to  take  a  step  forward  in  his  explanation 
to  the  child,  he  will  find  that  he  has  stepped  into 
a  quicksand.  The  very  idea  of  representation  in 
government,  of  passing  bills,  making  motions, 
and  controlling  distant  sections  of  country  by 
these  processes,  is  something  entirely  outside  of 
the  child's  life-plane.  It  is  not  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  words,  but  it  is  one  of 
complex,  unseen,  and  unsuspected  relations, 
one  of  motives  affecting  the  social  organism  of 
which  the  child  has  little  consciousness.  It  is 
one  of  generalizations,  for  the  construction  of 
which  the  child  is  unfurnished  with  particulars. 

During  the  great  railway  strike  in  Philadel- 
phia, I  closely  watched  some  little  boys  who, 
4i 


Gbe  lpoint  ot  Contact 

having  caught  the  destructive  spirit  of  the  mob, 
came  in  and  played  their  part  in  the  demonstra- 
tion of  vengeance  against  the  railway  company. 
What  degree  of  consciousness  had  these  juvenile 
offenders  of  what  they  were  doing?  The  socio- 
logical and  economic  question  between  the 
labor  unions  and  the  railway  corporation  was 
doubtless  entirely  foreign  to  the  plane  of  their 
thought.  But  the  self-activity,  the  impulse  to 
change  conditions,  was  quite  within  their  range 
of  consciousness. 

It  ought  to  be  evident,  then,  that  the  same  set 
of  facts  or  phenomena  may  be  viewed  on  entirely 
different  planes.  A  child  may  seem  attentive, 
interested,  and  even  zealous,  and  yet  be  entirely 
blind  to  those  facts  and  factors  which  are  absorb- 
ing the  chief  attention  of  his  elders. 

The  guests  of  a  summer  hotel  were  one  even- 
ing entertained  with  recitations  by  an  expert  of 
the  platform.  The  children  on  the  front  row 
exhibited  varying  degrees  of  interest,  rising  at 
times  to  extreme  demonstrations  of  delight. 
42 


Zbc  flMane  of  Experience 

Subsequently  I  found  that  the  poem  which  drew 
from  them  the  loudest  plaudits  was  not  only 
beyond  their  comprehension,  but  was  entirely 
beyond  their  recall,  while  that  which  excited 
and  absorbed  them  less  was  remembered.  In 
the  first  case  the  only  thing  on  their  plane  was 
the  dramatic  personal  action,  while  the  latter 
touched  them  at  a  point  of  contact  with  their 
own  lives. 

Once  more  :  A  speaker  having  been  invited 
to  make  an  address,  he  had  designed  to  give 
to  parents  some  advice  about  the  misjudging 
of  their  children.  He  gave  numerous  incidents 
illustrating  the  injustice  of  parental  treatment. 
But  before  him  sat  many  little  children !  It 
would  not  do  to  have  them  hear  him  arraign 
their  parents.  He  therefore  moved  on  two  dis- 
tinct planes  of  motive, — one  for  the  children,  one 
for  the  adults.  The  former  roared  with  laughter 
at  his  characterizations  of  the  little  folks  in  diffi- 
culty ;  the  latter  were  less  amused,  but  were 
more  busy  drawing  the  inferences  which  came 
43 


XLbc  point  of  Contact 

to  them,  more  or  less,  as  self-accusations.  On 
interrogating  certain  of  the  children  some  time 
after,  it  was  evident  that  they  had  not  seen  the 
real  point  of  the  address,  for  its  implications  had 
been  out  of  their  plane,  while  the  adults  gave 
overt  evidence  of  their  appreciation  of  the  real 
motive  of  the  speaker. 

These  illustrations  ought  to  show  clearly  that 
children  of  the  primary  class  may  have  Scripture 
lessons  brought  before  them,  the  treatment  of 
which  entertains  and  makes  them  seem  to  be 
taking  in  the  whole  historical  and  spiritual  situa- 
tion, while,  in  fact,  they  and  the  teacher  are  all 
the  time  viewing  the  demonstration  upon  planes 
quite  remote  from  each  other. 

The  child's  plane  of  life  is  one  of  simples 
and  of  concretes,  one  of  directness  and  immedi- 
ateness.  Any  attempt  to  force  upon  him  the 
complex,  the  abstract,  the  circuitous,  the  remote, 
the  unconnected,  will  be  sure  to  end  unhappily. 


44 


Ill 
applying  tbe  principle 


Ill 
Hppl^ino  tbe  principle 

Although  the  general  principle  of  appealing 
to  the  youthful  mind  through  the  already  famil- 
iar fact  in  experience  has  been  freely  illustrated 
in  the  foregoing  chapter,  it  may  be  helpful  to 
show  more  specifically  just  how  the  principle 
can  be  applied  in  practice  with  persons  of  vary- 
ing ages. 

It  is  not  always  possible,  in  dealing  either  with 
an  individual  or  with  aggregations,  to  strike  the 
point  of  closest  contact  with  life  or  with  the 
most  familiar  interests  or  activities,  but  it  is 
possible  to  address  children  on  the  general  plane 
of  child  sight.  The  point  of  contact  may  even 
be  one  of  mere  mental  habit  or  function.  Thus 
a  child  may  be  reached  from  his  curiosity  or  his 
spirit  of  investigation.  But  this  will  always 
have  to  be  found  within  the  child-life  plane.     In 

47 


Gbe  lpotnt  of  Contact 

"  Twinkle,  Twinkle,  Little  Star,"  the  line  "  How 
I  wonder  what  you  are,"  represents  in  the  adult 
a  very  different  mental  attitude  toward  the  twink- 
ling star  from  what  it  represents  in  the  child. 

Again,  a  "  golden  text,"  such  as  some  of 
those  which  have  already  been  cited,  would  not 
be  likely  to  arouse  the  curiosity  or  tempt  the 
inquiring  spirit,  while  a  little  bit  of  nature  or 
manufacture  entirely  unfamiliar  would  at  once 
incite  inquiry  and  hold  attention. 

Take  an  instance :  I  was  once  called,  as  a 
substitute,  to  teach  a  class  of  very  frisky  boys 
of  perhaps  nine  to  eleven  years  of  age.  The 
lesson  was  on  the  Golden  Rule.  The  boys  were 
in  a  state  of  ceaseless  activity  and  mischief- 
making.  It  was  plain  that  they  would  be  utterly 
beyond  my  control  if  I  persisted  either  in  mere 
Scripture  readings  or  with  ethical  abstractions. 
In  less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  it,  I  said  to 
myself,  "  Get  your  point  of  contact ;  address 
them  through  their  senses  ;  get  on  to  the  plane 
of  their  common  activity."  I  immediately  drew 
48 


BpplEing  tbe  principle 

an  ivory  foot-rule  out  of  my  pocket  and  asked 
what  it  was.  Silence  and  attention  were  im- 
mediate. Some  called  it  a  "  ruler,"  some  a 
"  measure,"  and  one  finally  said  it  was  a  "  rule." 

My  next  inquiry  was  to  ascertain  what  it  was 
made  of.  Some  said  ivory,  some  said  bone. 
The  class  was  in  full  control.  It  was  easy  then 
to  lead  them  on  to  an  imaginary  rule,  through 
keeping  them  in  a  certain  suspense  of  meaning, 
until  we  had  reached  the  Golden  Rule.  Ques- 
tioning then  drew  from  them  the  relative  value 
of  ivory  and  gold,  and  of  rules  made  from  them 
— real  or  figurative.  It  is  unnecessary  to  follow 
the  process  more  in  detail,  but  the  class  was 
conquered,  for  that  day  at  least,  and  their  dis- 
graceful hubbub  was  turned  into  an  exemplary 
discussion  of  eternal  truth. 

Golden  texts,  theological  doctrines,  ethical 
abstractions  from  the  Catechism  or  the  Epistles, 
taken  in  themselves,  would  have  been  hurled  at 
these  bright  minds  in  vain ;  but  the  contact  with 
a  single  tangible  object  such  as  a  boy  would  use, 
4  49 


Zbe  point  ot  Contact 

or,  at  all  events,  enjoys  handling,  was  the  suc- 
cessful point  of  departure  for  his  spiritual  in- 
struction. 

Take  another  case :  A  visitor  was  called  on 
to  address  a  school  made  up  largely  of  children 
more  or  less  familiar  with  country  life,  and  of 
various  ages.  The  lesson  of  the  day  had  been 
on  the  entry  of  the  Israelites  into  the  promised 
land.  He  wanted  to  give  the  school,  in  less 
than  ten  minutes,  a  general  grasp  of  the  history 
of  the  Hebrews  around  the  full  circuit  from  the 
promise  to  Abraham  to  the  realization  of  the 
promise,  centuries  later.  The  details  of  many 
Bible  lessons  necessarily  must  have  obstructed 
the  broader  view  or  general  trend  of  the  history. 
He  must  proceed  upon  the  plan  of  a  circuit  or 
circularity.  From  what  point  in  ordinary  life 
could  they  best  be  led  into  the  conception  of  the 
circuit  from  Canaan  through  Egypt  and  the 
Wilderness  back  into  Canaan  ? 

The  first  interest  was  awakened  by  drawing 
out,  through  questioning,  their  knowledge  of  the 

5o 


BpplBing  tbe  principle 

oak  and  the  acorn,  and,  again,  by  the  complete 
circuit  made  by  a  drop  of  water  from  ocean  to 
cloud,  to  rain,  to  spring,  to  river,  and  to  sea 
again.  From  contact  with  this  object  illustration 
of  the  idea  of  circularity  it  was  easy  to  lead  the 
school  on  to  the  circuit  that  covered  centuries  in 
the  life  of  the  Hebrews.  This  was  successfully 
accomplished  in  eight  minutes. 

On  another  occasion,  when  the  golden  text 
was  Luke  2  :  52, — "  And  Jesus  increased  in  wis- 
dom and  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God  and 
man," — a  speaker  wanted  to  press  the  thought 
of  growth.  A  class  of  little  girls  sat  just  in  front 
of  the  platform.  He  asked  whether  any  of  them 
had  a  doll,  and  received  a  prompt  answer.  Did 
that  doll  grow  any  bigger  ?  Why  not  ?  It  was 
not  alive.  Can  you  make  yourself  bigger  ?  It 
was  easy  to  follow  then  into  the  part  that  we  have 
in  our  own  physical  growth,  and,  finally,  in  in- 
creasing "in  favor  with  God  and  man." 

Another  illustration  I  extract  from  a  remark- 
ably graphic  and  suggestive  article  by  Elizabeth 
5i 


Zbe  iPoint  of  Contact 

Harrison  in  The  Sunday  School  Times.  It 
shows  also  that  the  application  of  the  principle 
is  not  limited  to  little  children. 

A  kindergartner,  visiting  a  mission  school, 
was  asked  by  the  superintendent  to  take  a  class 
of  "  toughs  "  which  had  already  been  given  up 
in  despair  by  four  teachers.  The  threat  of  the 
superintendent  to  eject  them  from  the  room  if 
they  did  not  behave  was  received  with  derisive 
laughter.  This  was  followed,  during  the  open- 
ing exercises,  by  various  outrageous  antics,  and 
then  came  the  time  for  the  lesson  teaching. 
Miss  Harrison  continues : 

As  soon  as  they  were  settled,  one  boy  raised  his 
blacking-box,  which  up  to  this  time  had  been  hidden 
under  his  chair ;  with  a  flourish  almost  too  quick  to  be 
seen,  he  scraped  it  across  the  nose  of  another  boy.  This 
was  an  affront  not  to  be  tolerated.  Instantly,  the  insulted 
boy  raised  his  clenched  fist.  In  a  moment  more  the  blow 
would  have  descended,  and  the  usual  street  row  would 
have  taken  place  in  the  Sunday-school  room. 

This  was  our  kindergartner's  opportunity.  "  From 
the  Known  to  the  Unknown  "  had  been  her  motto  for  years. 
Through  curiosity,  reverence  was  to  be  awakened. 
Quick  as  a  flash,  she  reached  out  her  hand,  and  seizing 

52 


SpplSing  tbe  principle 

the  blacking-box  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of  animation  :  "  I 
can  tell  you  something  about  this  box  that  you  do  net 
know." 

The  boys  were  amazed,  as  they  expected  a  repri- 
mand. The  clenched  fists  slowly  descended ;  all  eyes 
were  fastened  upon  her. 

"  Bah  !  "  said  one  of  the  boys,  in  a  tone  of  contempt; 
"  you're  trying  to  guy  us  now." 

"Indeed,  I  am  not,"  replied  the  kindergartner.  "I 
know  something  very  wonderful  about  this  box,  and  I  do 
not  believe  any  of  you  ever  heard  it." 

"Give  us  a  rest!"  tauntingly  said  another  skeptic. 
But  all  the  others  cried  out :  "  What  is  it  ?     Go  ahead !  " 

"  Of  what  is  this  box  made  ?"  said  the  teacher,  in  a 
slow  and  mysterious  tone  of  voice. 

"Wood,  of  course,"  said  two  or  three  of  the  disap- 
pointed group,  the  look  of  contempt  returning  to  their 
faces. 

"Oh,  yes!  of  course,"  responded  the  teacher;  "but 
where  did  the  wood  come  from  ?  " 

"Out  of  the  carpenter-shop,"  again  answered  two  or 
three. 

"  But  where  did  the  carpenter  get  it?"  said  the  kin- 
dergartner, still  keeping  up  her  tone  of  mystery. 

"From  the  lumber-yard,"  answered  one  boy,  more 
knowing  than  the  rest. 

"Yes,"  said  the  teacher,  encouragingly;  "but  where 
did  the  lumber-yard  man  get  it  ?  " 

This  brought  the  wisest  among  them  to  the  end  of 
his  knowledge. 

53 


Gbe  ipoint  of  Contact 

She  then  began,  and  described  to  them  the  long,  slow 
growth,  through  centuries  of  time,  of  the  forest  trees. 
The  long,  long  years  of  silent  waiting,  until  the  ax  of  the 
woodman  did  his  work  ;  the  busy,  picturesque  life  of  the 
logging-camp  ;  the  dangerous  voyage  of  the  logs,  tied  to- 
gether in  a  raft,  as  they  floated  down  the  majestic  river  ; 
the  wonderful  invention  by  which  machinery  was  made 
to  transform  these  round  logs  into  flat  boards  ready  for 
the  lumber-yard. 

The  boys  listened  in  intense  interest.  When  she  had 
finished,  there  was  a  deep-drawn  sigh,  and  all  eyes  turned 
instinctively  to  the  blacking-box,  the  mystery  of  whose 
former  life  had  been  unfolded  to  them. 

The  teacher  saw  that  she  had  gained  a  point.  Rever- 
ence must  come  from  idle  curiosity.  Curiosity  had  been 
gradually  transformed  into  interest  already.  She  con- 
tinued : 

"  I  think  I  know  something  else  about  this  box  which 
you  do  not  know." 

She  then  drew  out  their  knowledge  about  the 
nails  that  held  it  together,  tracing  the  process 
of  their  manufacture  back  to  the  solitary  bits  of 
iron  ore  in  the  mountain  range,  so  old  that  the 
life  of  man  had  no  record  of  their  beginning. 
She  graphically  pictured  the  life  of  a  miner. 
By  this  time  every  boy  was  leaning  forward  in 
breathless  interest,  fascinated  by  the  new  world 
54 


BpplEtng  tbc  principle 

into  which  she  had  led  him.  Again  taking  up 
the  box,  she  asked  what  color  it  was,  and  pur- 
sued the  same  method  on  that  point. 

Gradually  the  ringleader  among  the  boys,  leaning 
forward  until  his  head  reached  far  beyond  his  body,  ex- 
claimed in  tones  of  deepest  reverence  : 

"  I  know  what  you  are.  You're  a  fortune-teller;  that's 
what  you  are  !  " 

This  was  the  highest  tribute  which  he  could  pay  her. 
In  the  back  alley  in  which  he  lived,  a  mysterious  for- 
tune-teller played  the  part  of  Delphic  oracle.  To  him 
she  was  the  personification  of  wisdom.  And  there  sat  a 
woman  before  him  who  apparently  knew  everything, — 
who  could  tell  him  of  that  great  mysterious  world  which 
lay  outside  of  his  district. 

She  had  gained  her  point.  She  had  raised  within  each 
of  them  a  feeling  of  reverence.  .  .  .  Slowly  but  surely  she 
built  up  an  altar  in  them  to  the  unknown  God,  which 
altar  was  necessary  before  the  God  of  righteousness  and 
of  mercy  and  of  love  could  be  preached  unto  them. 

To  come  back  more  particularly  to  little 
children  the  principle  of  the  point  of  contact  and 
the  way  of  leading  the  child  easily  from  this 
point  in  his  experience  to  spiritual  truth  with- 
out leaving  the  natural  level  of  a 

55  /*v 


Gbe  {point  of  Contact 

cannot  be  better  illustrated  than  from  Frcebel's 
"  Mother  Play."  l 

"  From  so  simple  a  point  in  the  child's  activi- 
ties as  the  pat-a-cake  play  Frcebel  carries  the 
little  learner  along  step  by  step  thus:  "The 
bread,  or,  better  still,  the  little  cake  which  the 
child  likes  so  much,  he  receives  from  his  mother; 
the  mother,  in  turn,  receives  it  from  the  baker. 
So  far  so  good.  We  have  found  two  links  in 
the  great  chain  of  life  and  service.  Let  us  be- 
ware, however,  of  making  the  child  feel  that 
these  links  complete  the  chain.  The  baker  can 
bake  no  cake  if  the  miller  grinds  no  meal; 
the  miller  can  grind  no  meal  if  the  farmer  brings 
him  no  grain;  the  farmer  can  bring  no  grain  if 
his  field  yields  no  crop;  the  field  can  yield  no 
crop  if  the  forces  of  nature  fail  to  work  together 
to  produce  it;  the  forces  of  nature  could  not 
conspire  together  were  it  not  for  the  all-wise  and 

1  The  reader  is  referred  particularly  to  Susan  E.  Blow's  transla- 
tion of  "The  Mottoes  and  Commentaries  of  Friedrich  Frcebel's 
Mother  Play,"  one  of  the  volumes  of  Appleton's  International 
Education  Series. 

56 


Bpprging  tbe  principle 

beneficent  Power  who  incites  and  guides  them 
to  their  predetermined  ends." 

Observe  how  different  is  this  process  from  the 
common  one  of  forcing  the  child  on  to  an  adult 
plane  through  the  adult  abstractions  of  theolo- 
gies. 

Again,  note  the  suggestion  in  the  play  of  "The 
Two  Gates  :  "  "  The  idea  suggested  in  the  farm- 
yard gate  is  that  the  child  should  be  taught  to 
prize  and  protect  what  he  has  acquired.  The 
thought  illustrated  in  the  garden  gate  is  that  he 
should  be  led  to  recognize  and  name  the  differ- 
ent objects  in  his  environment.  In  your  attempt 
to  carry  out  the  latter  idea,  be  careful  to  begin 
with  the  things  which  the  child  sees  around 
him  in  the  house,  the  yard,  the  garden,  and  the 
meadow.  From  these  advance  to  the  naming 
of  objects  in  the  pasture  and  the  wood.  Teach 
your  child  not  only  to  recognize  and  name  ob- 
jects, but  also  to  recognize  and  name  qualities." 

The  weather-vane  is  another  familiar  object 
in  the  child's  life.  Frcebel  here  admirably  illus- 
57 


Gbe  lpotnt  of  Contact 

trates  the  difference  between  conducting  the 
child  always  on  the  plane  of  his  own  natural 
powers  or  appreciations,  and  confusing  him  by 
thrusting  him  out  of  it.  "I  might  as  well  talk 
to  you  in  a  foreign  tongue  as  to  tell  you  that 
'  the  pressure  of  air,  or  its  altered  density,  or  a 
change  in  its  temperature,  causes  wind!'  You 
would  not  understand  a  single  word  of  this  ex- 
planation. But  one  thing  you  can  understand 
even  now :  A  single  mighty  power  like  the  wind 
can  do  many  things  great  and  small.  You  see 
the  things  it  does,  though  you  cannot  see  the 
wind  itself.  There  are  many  things,  my  child, 
which  we  can  be  sure  of  though  we  cannot  see 
them." 

Enough  has  been  said  to  demonstrate  the  very 
important  double  principle  of  beginning  at  the 
point  of  contact  with  experience  and  of  reaching 
high  spiritual  truths  by  keeping  always  upon  the 
child's  plane  or  level  of  mental  and  spiritual 
sight.  Or,  in  more  popular  phrase,  we  must 
hold  ourselves  firmly  at  the  child's  point  of  view. 
58 


IV 

mussing  tbe  point 


IV 

flUissino  tbe  point 

There  are  those  who  have  a  certain  intuitive 
sense  that  the  point  of  interest  to  a  child  and  the 
point  of  departure,  or  starting,  in  his  instruction, 
should  be  something  which  to  them  seems  child- 
ish and  simple.  Consequently  they  often  suc- 
ceed in  gaining  entry  to  the  child  mind.  But, 
having  no  formulated  guiding  principle,  they 
also  often  fail. 

To  illustrate :  I  remember  hearing  an  address 
to  children  based  upon  the  text,  "  The  little  foxes 
that  spoil  the  vines."  These  little  foxes  were 
our  small  vices  or  weaknesses.  Why  did  the 
speaker  choose  such  a  point  of  departure?  I 
suppose  "  the  little  foxes  "  had  a  simple,  child- 
like sound  about  it  to  him,  and  seemed  as  though 
it  would  be  easily  a  point  of  interest  to  little  chil- 
dren. Perhaps  it  was,  in  so  far  as  it  roused  their 
61 


Gbe  ipoint  of  Contact 

curiosity.  Whatever  the  children  got  out  of  the 
address,  they  got  in  spite  of,  rather  than  because 
of,  the  point  of  departure,  which  was  not  a  point 
of  contact  with  common  experience.  To  very 
few  children  does  a  fox  exist  in  more  than  name, 
if  that;  and  the  propensity  of  foxes  for  spoiling 
vines  is  one  which  they  could  not  appreciate 
unless  they  had  lived  in  a  country  where  they  had 
actually  seen  this  kind  of  destruction  wrought,  or 
heard  it  talked  about  until  it  became  a  familiar 
fact. 

In  the  same  way,  writers  for  children  often 
seem  to  suppose  that  they  are  placing  themselves 
on  the  child's  plane  by  the  use  of  certain  kinds 
of  youthful  expressions  and  by  a  kind  of  forced 
intimacy  of  manner,  while  the  situations,  the 
motives  and  raw  material  out  of  which  the  story 
or  article  is  made,  are  foreign  to  the  child's  per- 
ception, thought,  or  feeling. 

Certain  "appliances"  now  frequently  used  in 
the  primary  school  as  a  part  of  the  process  of 
"  adapting "  the  lesson  matter  sometimes  fail 
62 


flfttestncj  tbe  IPoint 

because,  forming  no  links  with  the  child's  own 
experience,  they  merely  center  the  interest  on 
themselves  as  objects. 

Says  Miss  Julia  E.  Peck:  "In  our  attempts  to 
meet  the  child  on  his  own  level  we  have  fallen 
very  far  below  his  level,  failing  to  note  from  week 
to  week  that  the  dignity  of  his  simplicity  is  a 
lasting  rebuke  to  our  fussy  sentimentality." 

Again,  history  as  such  is  a  concept  prac- 
tically out  of  the  primary  child's  power  of 
acquirement.  He  has  too  few  years  behind  him 
in  his  own  experience,  and  has  had  too  little 
dealing  with  that  impersonal  thing — organized 
society.  History  as  personal  biography,  Bible 
stories  as  such,  have  a  very  large  educational 
function  for  the  little  child,  but  not  as  history. 
No  matter  what  delight  the  children  show  in 
paraphernalia,  no  matter  what  pat  answers  they 
give,  we  must  be  suspicious  of  the  delight  and 
the  answers,  and  we  must  look  for  another  cause 
than  historical  consciousness. 

An  illustration  is  to  be  found  in  the  following, 
63 


Gbe  point  of  Contact 

which  was  sent  to  me  by  an  experienced  secular 
as  well  as  Sunday-school  teacher.  She  says : 
"  I  shall  not  soon  forget  my  own  struggles  with 
the  International  lessons.  I  had  small  boys 
from  six  to  eight  years  old.  The  lesson  was 
Nehemiah's  prayer.  I  had  tried  very  hard  to 
make  the  lesson  practical,  and  entertaining  as 
well,  but  I  am  afraid  I  must  have  succeeded  too 
well,  for  when  I  asked  one  small  boy  how  many 
years  ago  he  thought  all  these  things  had  hap- 
pened, he  opened  his  eyes  very  wide,  and  ven- 
tured, '  I  guess  about  a  week.'  I  think  he 
thought  that  he  had  been  rash  in  suggesting 
such  a  remote  period."  We  remember  certain 
events  of  our  childhood  only  as  incidents  in  that 
life.  They  seldom  have  any  historicity  about 
them.  Their  chronological  order  we  are  seldom 
conscious  of  unless  we  have  worked  it  out  in 
later  life  by  reasoning  upon  it. 

The  effort  to  force  a  child  on  to  a  plane  not 
naturally  his  own  is  thus  referred  to  in  an  edito- 
rial utterance  of  The  School  Journal: 
64 


AQtssing  tbe  point 

The  mistake  is  frequently  made  of  assigning  subjects 
for  compositions  that  lie  outside  of  the  pupil's  range  of 
experience  and  vision.  A  premium  is  thereby  put  upon 
shallowness  in  thought  and  superficiality  of  judgment. 
It  is  a  way  of  making  the  children  hypocrites  by  having 
them  talk  or  write  of  things  they  know  nothing  about. 
Every  great  educator  from  Comenius  down  to  our  day 
has  raised  his  voice  against  what  Basedow  terms  "  per- 
nicious word  culture." 

Another  frequent  way  of  missing  the  point 
and  compelling  children  to  express  adult  senti- 
ments and  feelings  entirely  foreign  to  the  plane 
of  child  life  is  found  in  some  of  the  hymns  they 
are  asked  to  sing.  I  quote  here  from  an  article, 
published  in  The  Sunday  School  Times,  by  Mrs. 
George  Archibald  : 

There  is  good  sense,  as  well  as  fervent  joy  and  full 
assurance,  in  the  verse  which  says  : 

"  Come,  sing  to  me  of  heaven, 
When  I'm  about  to  die  ; 
Sing  songs  of  holy  ecstasy 
To  waft  my  soul  on  high. 

There'll  be  no  sorrow  there,"  etc. 

But,  as  children  are  not,  ordinarily,  about  to  die,  shall 
their  spiritual  songs  be  principally  about  heaven,  and 
expressive  of  an  intense  longing  to  go  there  ?    Yet,  when 

5  65 


Gbe  point  ot  Contact 

we  take  pains  to  notice,  we  find  in  Sunday-school  hymns 
a  vast  amount  of  rime,  time,  tune,  and  measure  devoted 
to  chanting  the  desolation  of  life,  the  longing  for  death, 
and  a  submissive  waiting  for  release  and  glory.  What 
could  be  more  unnatural  ? 

The  child's  first  effort  is  toward  the  continuance  of  its 
earthly  existence.  The  mother's  first  care  has  the  same 
object.  The  first  warnings  of  the  infant  are  those  against 
dangers  that  might  imperil  its  life, — the  flame,  the  edge- 
tool,  the  flight  of  stairs.  Its  first  work  at  school  is  as  a 
foundation  for  the  needs  of  the  terrestrial  sojourn.  And 
its  first  spiritual  teaching  should  be  that  of  active  good- 
ness, and  cheerful,  kindly  Christian  endeavor  in  the 
sphere  to  which  it  is  born. 

"The  home  of  the  soul  "  may  often  fitly  be  the  goal 
of  adult  longing.  But  the  first  home  of  the  soul  is  the 
natural  body.  Let  the  children  learn  to  magnify  the 
offices  of  this  body.  Let  their  songs  be  those  which 
will  inspire  their  souls  to  use  the  lips,  the  hands  and  feet, 
in  the  service  of  man,  as  the  children  of  God.  .  .  . 

One  of  God's  best  gifts  to  the  little  child  is  its  joyful 
anticipation  of  the  life  that  now  is.  We  have  no  right 
to  put  into  its  mouth  the  song  of  lamentation. 

This  child's  plane  may  be  spiritually  quite  as 
elevated  as  that  of  the  adult,  but  the  mode  of 
the  child's  spiritual  self-expression  will  be  quite 
different. 

There  is  another  way  of  forcing  an  entrance 
66 


flflltssing  tbe  lpoint 

to  the  child's  mind  at  an  unnatural  and  danger- 
ous point.  Doubters,  agnostics,  skeptics,  or  in- 
fidels, are  not  found  in  early  childhood.  When 
children  inquire,  they  do  it  because  they  want  to 
know  more,  not  because  they  doubt.  It  is  there- 
fore a  fatal  mistake  to  address  the  child  as  if  he 
were  a  skeptic. 

A  discerning  student  of  the  child,  a  primary 
worker,  Miss  Lida  B.  Robertson,  says :  "  Jesus 
is  'the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life,'  and  our 
teachings  of  him  should  be  positive,  and  not 
negative.  We  do  him  and  the  pupils  irremedi- 
able harm  to  fill  their  embryo  minds  with  the 
accursed  doubts  of  scribes,  Pharisees,  and  Sad- 
ducees,  in  order  that  we  may  try  to  prove  the 
truth  to  them." 

Even  if  a  child  has  unfortunately  been  in  an 
unbelieving  environment,  and  so  may  be  said  to 
have  had  some  experience  with  that  phase  of 
life,  points  of  contact  with  it  are  not  to  be  taken 
merely  because  they  seem  to  touch  his  experi- 
ence, Observe,  this  ruling  is  not  arbitrary,  but 
67 


Gbe  point  of  Contact 

is  based  largely  on  the  fact  that  unbelief  is  not 
on  a  plane  natural  to  the  condition  of  childhood. 
Skepticism,  if  it  can  be  found  in  a  little  child,  has 
been  received  through  suggestion  from  without, 
and  is  therefore  abnormal  and  premature.  Any 
suggestion  of  unbelief  is  liable  to  beget  unbelief. 
It  is  time  enough  to  deal  with  it  later,  when  it  is 
begotten. 

It  is  not  merely  the  starting-points,  then,  that 
must  be  within  the  child's  range  of  experience, 
but  it  is  the  whole  teaching  which  proceeds  step 
by  step  from  it.  This  means  not  only  that  we 
must  find  the  proper  points  of  contact,  but  that 
the  body  of  lesson  material  itself  be  appropriately 
selected  for  its  simplicity,  positiveness,  imme- 
diateness,  concreteness,  and  connectedness. 


68 


V 

Gbe  lesson  (material 


V 

Zhe  %c3son  Material 

It  is  now  a  much  heralded  idea  that  it  makes 
little  or  no  difference  what  the  subject-matter  of 
the  Bible-study  lesson  is,  provided  the  teacher 
"adapt"  it  to  the  children.  It  is  contended  that 
the  selection  of  uniform  lessons  for  pupils  of  all 
ages  is  quite  consistent  with  the  demand  for 
graded  instruction ;  and  that  the  grading  should 
be,  not  in  the  subject-matter,  but  in  the  method 
of  its  impartation.  At  the  International  Sunday- 
school  Convention  of  1893,  the  primary  workers 
themselves  formally  made  the  declaration  that 
"  experience  has  proven  that  the  International 
lessons  are  susceptible  of  being  adapted  to 
young  children  by  suitable  methods  of  teaching." 

I  do  not  intend  here  to  debate  the  question  as 
to  whether  experience  has  proved  this  or  not. 
It  is,  indeed,  rather  a  question  of  what  the  child's 
71 


Zbc  point  ot  Contact 

experience  is  with  us,  than  ours  with  him,  and 
the  trend  of  evidences  in  the  foregoing  chapters 
must  suffice.  The  issue  which  I  make  is,  that 
choice  of  material  is  the  first  essential  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  the  method  of  presenting  the  mate- 
rial comes  second. 

Some  Scripture  passages  are  certainly  better 
for  some  purposes  than  others.  If  this  is  not  so, 
why  have  certain  passages  always  studiously 
been  omitted  from  the  International  courses  ? 
Now  the  little  child  is  a  purpose,  and  a  very 
different  sort  of  purpose  from  the  man  or  woman 
or  the  youth.  It  is  therefore  quite  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  some  Scripture  lessons  would 
be  better  than  others  for  the  child. 

But  apart  from  this,  if  we  recognize  the  right  of 
each  child  to  his  individuality,  we  should  recog- 
nize the  right  of  childhood  to  its  individuality. 
It  seems  almost  humiliating  to  plead  for  a  truth 
so  well  understood  in  every  other  sphere  except 
that  of  Sunday-school  instruction.  Does  the 
secular  school  take  trigonometry,  or  Greek 
72 


Gbe  %c66on  fBlatcrtal 

grammar,  or  constitutional  law,  into  the  primary 
school  ?  Would  any  sensible  parent  consent  to 
send  his  children  to  a  secular  primary  school 
where  there  was  no  choice  of  lesson  material, 
but  where  any  and  every  subject,  however  ab- 
struse and  remote  from  the  child's  plane  of 
thought,  was  ordered  to  be  "  adapted  "  by  the 
teacher  ?  Such  "  adaptation  "  as  one  often  sees 
is  a  misnomer.  It  results  in  a  nominal  but  not 
real  teaching  of  the  assigned  text. 

If  it  be  claimed  that  any  and  every  text  in  the 
Bible  is  suitable  for  the  children  provided  it  be 
suitably  adapted  by  the  teacher,  let  the  words 
of  Pestalozzi  answer:  "The  reform  needed  is  not 
that  the  school  coach  should  be  better  horsed, 
but  that  it  should  be  turned  right  around  and 
started  on  a  new  track." 

The  turning  around  will  be  the  adoption  of  a 
lesson  course  selected  especially  from  the  child's 
point  of  view,  as  well  as  the  ordering  of  the  ser- 
vices and  the  mode  of  address  to  the  child  upon 
his  own  plane  of  sense,  thought,  and  feeling. 
73 


Gbe  point  of  Contact 

Until  this  is  accomplished  a  high  grade  of  teach- 
ing will  be  impossible. 

Miss  Blow,  speaking  deprecatingly  of  the  lack 
of  clear  insight  in  the  choice  of  themes,  says : 
"  It  would  seem  that  the  selection  of  suitable 
themes  is  a  matter  of  prime  import."  And  a 
writer  in  The  Westminster  Review  says :  "  What 
is  true  of  bodily  food  is  true  also  of  spiritual 
food.  Children's  intellects  cannot  digest  that 
which  is  suited  to  adults;  and  however  sincerely 
religious  beliefs  may  be  held  by  parents,  this 
does  not  prevent  them  from  assuming  a  differ- 
ent complexion  in  the  mind  of  a  child.  At 
second  hand  they  are  not  merely  useless,  but 
pernicious." 

And  Herbert  Spencer :  "  Good  exposition  im- 
plies much  constructive  imagination.  A  pre- 
requisite is  the  forming  of  true  ideas  of  the  men- 
tal states  of  those  who  are  to  be  taught;  and  a 
further  prerequisite  is  the  imagining  of  methods 
by  which,  beginning  with  conceptions  which 
they  possess,  there  may  be  built  up  in  their 
74 


UNIVERSITY 

Zbc  Xesson  ^material 

minds  the  conceptions  they  do  not  possess.  Of 
constructive  imagination,  as  displayed  in  this 
sphere,  men  at  large  appear  to  be  almost  devoid; 
as  witness  the  absurd  systems  of  teaching  which 
in  past  times,  and  in  large  measure  at  present, 
have  stupefied,  and  still  stupefy,  children." 

Says  Louis  Heilprin:  "We  teach  a  child  to 
bound  every  state  in  the  world,  and  make  him 
learn  all  the  capitals,  before  he  has  the  slightest 
interest  in  land  that  he  has  not  seen.  We  teach 
him  to  locate  a  long  array  of  capes  and  prom- 
ontories without  his  having  any  conception  of 
their  significance  as  landmarks.  .  .  .  We  drag  him 
from  one  corner  to  another  of  the  great  tableau 
of  history,  and  compel  him  to  take  in  its  insig- 
nificant details  before  he  has  been  given  a  chance 
to  acquire  any  interest  in  any  age  but  his  own." 

This  fairly  pictures  our  tendency,  in  all  deal- 
ings with  the  child,  to  keep  him  in  the  remote 
instead  of  the  near,  and  in  minor  details  to  him 
disconnected  and  unrelated,  instead  of  large  sim- 
ple generals  or  wholes. 

75 


Zbc  {point  of  Contact 

It  will  not  do,  however,  to  show  the  weakness 
and  harmfulness  of  our  present  system  without 
indicating  in  what  direction  reform  must  lie.  It 
is  not  my  part  or  purpose  to  work  out  the  de- 
tails of  a  primary  Bible  course.  Nor  is  it  essen- 
tial that  every  instructor,  in  order  to  be  famil- 
iar with  the  principle  of  the  point  of  contact 
and  the  plane  of  experience,  should  be  expert  in 
the  construction  of  lesson  courses.  But  some 
basal  suggestions,  some  foundation  principles, 
may  be  here  laid  down  for  completeness'  sake. 

The  Bible  is  a  complex  of  abstracts  and  con- 
cretes, of  history,  nature,  ethics,  prophecy,  doc- 
trine, etc.,  embracing  also  many  bloody  and,  to 
us,  revolting  historical  pictures,  altogether  un- 
suitable for  a  child's  reading.  It  is  therefore, 
as  a  text  book,  unique,  and  accordingly  difficult 
of  presentation.  Nevertheless,  it  is  possible  to 
construct  Bible  lesson  courses  from  the  child's 
point  of  view. 

Beginning  where  we  "find  the  pupil,"  then, 
we  must  take  a  few  near-at-hand  points  in  the 

7<* 


XLbc  Xesson  {material 

child's  experience, — objects  in  the  home,  in 
nature,  parental  relations,  etc.  These  must  be 
combined  or  thought  into  a  simple,  easily-con- 
ceived whole.  We  must  observe  peoples  before 
we  talk  about  "a  peculiar  people,"  "the  chosen 
people."  "The  simplest  general  whole,"  says 
Parker,  is  the  "first  objective  point."  And  "the 
plain  rule  of  procedure,  in  going  from  the  part 
to  the  whole,  is  to  form  a  real  whole  that  can  be 
most  easily  imagined  or  appreciated.  .  .  .  The 
anatomy  of  a  finger  or  a  muscle  is  more  difficult 
than  the  anatomy  of  the  entire  framework  of  the 
body."  A  child  understands  sentences  and 
phrases  of  which  he  does  not  understand  the 
isolated  words.  He  can  swing  his  arms  mightily, 
albeit  he  cannot  control  his  fingers  precisely. 

Pursuing  the  germinal  idea  of  relations  wre 
approach  the  idea  of  Creator  and  Father  of  all. 
Next  we  might  aim  for  the  concept  of  communi- 
cation through  the  simple  percepts  of  speech, 
books,  etc.;  then  a  great  simple,  general  whole 
again,  a  concept  of  revelation, — the  Bible.  The 
77 


Gbe  point  of  Contact 

way  is  thus  naturally  and  logically  opened  for 
the  revelation  of  God  in  human  form, —  the 
Word  "made  flesh,"  the  Saviour  Jesus.  (All 
the  steps  that  this  paragraph  implies  cannot,  of 
course,  be  detailed  here.  Nor  is  it  meant  to  say 
that  this  is  the  only  right  beginning,  but  rather 
that  it  is  the  only  right  principle  of  beginning 
and  of  proceeding, — from  the  known  to  the  un- 
known.) 

Recalling  again  that  young  children  have 
very  little  conception  of  time  or  space,  we  must 
consequently  avoid  much  dependence  upon  con- 
cepts rooted  in  them.  It  is  useless  to  take 
primaries  step  by  step  from  Egypt  to  the  Prom- 
ised Land  until  they  have  a  comprehensive 
view,  a  simple  idea  of  Israel  (whether  we  call  it 
"Israelites,"  "Hebrew's,"  "Jews,"  "peculiar  peo- 
ple," or  any  other  name)  from  Abraham  to  the 
modern  Jew.  The  complex  of  historical  details 
within  that  view  cannot  be  appreciated.  "The 
fatal  mistake,"  says  Colonel  Parker,  "of  many 
teachers  ...  is  that  of  leading  pupils  into  the 
78 


Zbc  Xesson  material 

search  for  (to  the  teachers)  alluring  details,  in- 
stead of  teaching  just  enough  of  facts  to  sub- 
serve the  purposes  of  clear  and  simple  generali- 
zations." Creeping  week  by  week  from  the 
Creation  to  Joshua  or  David  or  Zerubbabel  is 
utterly  futile  if  the  intention  is  to  convey  the 
history  or  chronology  idea.  Herbart  observes 
that  the  impression  of  the  present  moment 
throws  the  one  previously  apprehended  too 
quickly  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness. 

Moreover,  the  distracting  details  are  a  serious 
interference  with  the  child's  generalizing  powers. 
There  is  no  implication  here  that  children  do 
not  apprehend  great  religious  truths.  They  do. 
But  I  mean  to  emphasize  the  difference  between 
the  simple  and  the  complex,  the  high  and  the 
intricate.  Hawthorne  clearly  saw  that  "  children 
possess  an  unestimated  sensibility  to  whatever  is 
deep  or  high,  in  imagination  or  feeling,  so  long 
as  it  is  simple  likewise.  It  is  only  the  artificial 
and  the  complex  that  bewilder  them." 

Again,  we  must  have  always  in  mind  a  simple 

79 


Xlbe  point  of  Contact 

idea  of  relations,  centering  in  the  God-ward. 
Here  the  value  of  Bible  stories  is  very  positive. 
They  lead  pupils  to  put  themselves  in  the  place 
of  others,  and  to  look  for  relations  and  conse- 
quences. If  they  touch  the  child's  experience, 
and  arouse  his  curiosity,  they  educate  memory, 
enforce  moral,  become  a  basis  of  action,  and  so 
develop  character. 

The  stories  must,  however,  be  wisely  selected. 
The  continuous  depicting  of  bloodshed  and  hor- 
rors in  the  illustrations  given  in  certain  Bible 
story-books  for  children,  is  simply  barbarous. 
A  child  should  not  get  as  a  dominant  thought  of 
God  the  idea  of  retribution,  of  killing,  warring, 
etc.  Nor  ought  his  early  impressions  of  God's 
Book  to  consist  mainly  of  such  things  as  are 
repellent  to  a  sensitive  nature,  especially  in  its 
most  impressible  period.  The  child  cannot  have 
sufficient  knowledge  of  situations  to  justify  a 
repeated  exhibit  of  vengeance  and  horror.  For 
the  same  reason  the  physical  sufferings  of  our 
Lord  on  the  cross  must  not  be  too  minutely  pic- 
80 


Zbc  Xc69on  flQaterial 

tured,  and  his  death  ought  seldom  to  be  men- 
tioned apart  from  his  rising  again.  Then,  too, 
the  stones  must  have  a  certain  simple  complete- 
ness of  their  own,  and  not  be  too  dependent  on 
remote  causes  and  complications,  or  on  local 
conditions. 

There  can  be  no  ideal  course  of  lessons  for  all 
alike.  Differences  of  condition  among  schools, 
and  among  the  pupils  in  the  same  school,  forbid 
it.  The  great  variance  in  the  qualifications  of 
teachers,  and  the  power  of  old  associations,  pre- 
dilections, and  prejudices,  forbid  it.  And  yet 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  there  can  be  a  course 
ideal  in  its  recognition  of  these  difficulties,  and 
ideal  in  its  concessions  to  them.  But  such  a 
course  must  regard  those  fundamental  princi- 
ples without  which  the  primary  teaching  of  the 
future  must  be  pitiably  in  arrears  to  a  progres- 
sive age. 

Recapitulating,  we  find  that,  in  teaching  the 
child,  child  nature  is  the  first  consideration;  that 
the  child  is  capable  of  perceiving  certain  pro- 
6  Si 


XLbc  point  of  Contact 

found  spiritual  truths,  although  he  be  incapable 
of  receiving  them  through  a  conventional  adult 
phraseology;  that  we  must  take  the  child  where 
we  find  him;  that  the  mind  grows  only  upon 
that  which  it  assimilates;  that  we  cannot  force 
this  assimilation  .beyond  a  more  or  less  well- 
defined  power  of  the  child's  nature;  that  we 
must  proceed  from  known  to  unknown,  and 
from  concrete  to  abstract ;  that  we  must  teach 
by  wholes  rather  than  in  complications  of  detail; 
that  the  child  mind  has  little  power  of  perceiv- 
ing matters  of  time  or  space,  and  consequently 
can  assimilate  but  little  of  history  or  geography ; 
that  the  connection  of  one  lesson  with  another 
must  be  a  connection  of  thought  rather  than  of 
mere  chronology;  that  the  narration  of  things 
painful  and  horrible  must  be  as  far  as  possible 
avoided ;  that  Bible  stories  have  an  important 
pedagogical  value,  and  that  instruction  must  be 
positive  rather  than  negative  or  apologetic. 

Any  one  who  has  attempted  to  build  up  a 
primary  course  in  which  the  foregoing  principles 
82 


Zbc  Wesson  falaterial 

have  been  fairly  respected,  will  have  discovered 
that,  if  he  can  construct  one  such  course,  he  can 
about  as  satisfactorily  construct  more.  He  will 
have  found  himself,  at  times,  in  a  strait  betwixt 
two  paths  through  Primary  Land.  He  comes 
now  and  again  to  a  parting  of  ways,  both  or  all 
equally  primary,  equally  promising,  all  trending 
toward  the  same  goal.  The  resources  are  great 
and  varied. 

For  the  first  time  in  twenty-three  years,  the 
International  lessons  in  1896  began  to  acknowl- 
edge the  rights  and  claims  of  the  child  as  a  per- 
sonality peculiar  and  distinct  from  that  of  the 
youth  or  the  adult,  in  a  special  "  optional  "  pri- 
mary course.  So  far,  so  good.  The  Journal  of 
Education  recently  said,  editorially :  "  The  first 
great  modern  movement  in  Sunday-school  work 
was  the  organization  of  the  International  Sun- 
day-school Committee,  and  the  adoption  of  the 
idea  of  uniformity.  Too  much  praise  cannot  be 
given  the  wisdom  and  devotion  of  those  who 
made  the  perfection  of  the  idea  possible.     But, 

83 


Gbe  H>olnt  ot  Contact 

with  all  its  virtues,  uniformity  is  a  very  small 
idea  in  and  of  itself  around  which  to  weave  a 
perpetual  system.  The  educational  world  has 
waited  patiently  these  many  years  for  the  Inter- 
national to  add  to  that  incidental  virtue  some 
pedagogical  principle,  and  the  first  real  move- 
ment in  that  direction  is  in  the  issuance  of  the 
International  Optional  Primary  Lessons  for  1896." 

The  fact  that  this  course,  to  many,  seems  un- 
systematic, planless,  unbookish,  would  suggest 
the  possibility  that  there  might  be  plan  under  it, 
and  system  in  it.  It  might  even  be  unchrono- 
logical,  and  yet  truly  logical. 

The  Book  of  Genesis  is  not  genesis  to  the 
child.  Daylight  comes  before  the  sun.  If  we 
think  we  can  teach  the  child  the  Bible  best  in 
what,  to  an  adult,  is  consecutive  order,  because 
it  is  literary  order  or  historical  order,  we  deceive 
ourselves.  We  are  not  bringing  the  child  the 
truth  in  his  orderly  way,  even  if  it  is  ours.  Con- 
nection and  order  to  us  are  not  necessarily  order 
or  connection  to  him. 

84 


ftbe  %cs6on  fulaterlal 

On  looking  at  the  International  primary  les- 
sons, one  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  the  eye 
is  the  absence  of  any  visible  line  dividing  book 
from  book,  or  Testament  from  Testament.  The 
procedure  is  chiefly  by  interdependent  themes 
or  a  series  of  connected  topics.  So  far,  this  is 
as  it  should  be.  The  fourth  quarter,  however, 
retreats  from  this  principle  to  become  chrono- 
logical, albeit  laudably  simple. 

It  must  once  more  be  noted  that,  so  far,  the 
International  primary  course  contemplates  pro- 
gressive teaching  by  topics,  logically, — not  by 
book,  chronologically.  The  need  of  the  child 
determines  what  the  topics  shall  be,  whether 
they  cover  the  whole  Bible  or  not ;  and  "  Testa- 
ments," as  Testaments,  are  not,  as  they  need  not 
be,  in  the  case. 

The  Sunday-school  can  as  little  afford  to 
ignore  or  to  repudiate  those  fundamental  peda- 
gogical laws  upon  which  all  great  educators  are 
now  practically  agreed,  as  the  secular  school. 
Education  is  education,  no  matter  what  name 

85 


Gbe  point  ot  Contact 

the  school  goes  by.  The  Sunday-school  suffers 
from  a  hallucination  that,  because  it  is  a  reli- 
gious institution,  it  must  educate  by  some 
method  peculiar  to  itself, — a  method  which  too 
easily  presumes  on  God's  willingness  to  make 
good  our  shortcomings. 

It  will  be  a  long  time  yet  before  we  fully 
realize  that  the  child  under  eight  is  not  a  mere 
diminutive  adult;  that  he  has  strictly  no  historic 
consciousness,  very  little  appreciation  of  the 
remote  in  cause  or  effect,  in  time  or  in  space; 
and  that  he  has  no  business  with  any  series  of 
facts  which,  because  of  the  half-wrong  impres- 
sion which  he  must  needs  get  of  them,  make 
"  utter  nonsense  or  mere  verbal  cram  of  the  most 
careful  instruction." 

The  truth  is  that  the  child  is  robbed  of  his 
right  as  a  child  by  our  everlastingly  thinking 
of  him  only  as  the  coming  man.  We  think 
too  much  of  what  he  may  be,  and  not  enough 
of  what  he  is.  At  best,  the  ideal  man  must  first 
have  had  an  ideal  childhood.  We  shall  not 
S6 


Zbe  Xesson  ^material 

make  a  perfect  child  of  him  by  forcing  him  into 
an  adult  mold.  Even  Jesus  had  to  be  a  baby 
before  he  could  become  a  man.  "  It  is  danger- 
ous," says  the  immortal  Frcebel,  "to  interfere  in 
any  way  with  a  ripening  process." 

Apart  from  this,  any  child  may  finish  his 
mission  in  childhood.  Out  of  every  thousand 
children,  over  two  hundred  die  before  they  reach 
nine  years  of  age.  Are  we  going  to  let  these 
short  lives  be  a  failure  just  because  it  is  easier 
and  more  sentimental  to  have  all  grades  using 
the  same  lesson?  Who  can  measure  the  influ- 
ence which  children  have  had  upon  history? 
I  refer  not  merely  to  their  attractions  and 
sweetening  influence  upon  us — that  were  adult 
egotism.  I  refer  to  their  direct  powers, — powers 
which  we  have  lost,  powers  which  convention 
and  artifice   have  pressed  and   dried  out   of  us. 

"  Our  simple  childhood  sits  upon  a  throne 
That  hath  more  power  than  all  the  elements." 

It  is  idle,  if  not  immoral,  to  suppose  that  be- 
cause we  are  trying  to  teach  God's  word  to  chil- 

87 


XTbe  point  of  Contact 

dren  we  can  therefore  ignore  the  demands  and 
defy  the  laws  of  child  nature.  God  never  works 
a  miracle  to  relieve  us  from  our  obligation  to 
use  common  sense.  Our  Lord  respected  the 
child's  point  of  view,  and  gave  it  a  foremost 
place.  He  never  told  the  child  to  be  as  a  man, 
although  he  did  tell  the  man  to  be  as  a  child. 
A  child  is  entitled  to  all  that  goes  with  child- 
hood, no  matter  whether  we  are  dealing  with 
him  in  secular  or  in  religious  matters. 

The  remedy  for  our  evils  lies  in  commanding 
child  nature  by  obeying  child  nature;  in  induct- 
ing a  child  into  a  subject  through  his  natural 
point  of  contact  with  life,  his  experience,  his 
activities,  his  appreciations,  his  sense  percep- 
tions and  his  conceptions.  In  short,  the  child's 
Genesis  is  not  the  man's  Genesis.  The  story  of 
the  beginnings  of  things  is  by  no  means  the 
beginning  of  the  story  of  things.  The  child  was 
not  made  for  lessons,  but  lessons  must  be  made 
for  the  child. 


88 


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